AAAR 31st Annual Conference
October 8-12, 2012
Hyatt Regency Minneapolis
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Abstract View
Time-Resolved Chemical Characterization of Ambient PM2.5 in Stockton, California
ARANTZAZU EIGUREN-FERNANDEZ, Gregory Lewis, Steven Spielman, Susanne Hering, Aerosol Dynamics Inc.
Abstract Number: 179 Working Group: Aerosol Exposure
Abstract Our newly developed Growth Tube-based three-stage collectors were deployed at the Air Resources Board monitoring station located in Stockton (CA) to evaluate their performance under real field conditions. Three parallel systems were deployed and dry-depositions of ambient PM2.5 were collected between November 2011 and February 2012. Two systems collected 12-hour samples at 1.5 lpm for the identification and characterization of particle-bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAHs) by HPLC-FLD, and sulfate and nitrate by IC-ECD. For the chemical characterization the plates containing the dry-PM2.5 samples were directly placed in the autosamplers and both analyses were conducted without previous extraction, filtration and volume evaporation steps. A 1 lpm sampler was used to collect 6-hour samples for the characterization of the elemental composition using a Laser Induced Breakdown System (LIBS). Parallel filters were collected for 48-hours and analyzed for PAHs. Average concentrations found on the time-resolved samples will be compared with concentrations found on the filters as a method to assess sample collection efficiency and possible sampling artifacts of the three-stage sampler.